Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Happy 50th Mom!

My Mom. My lovely, adorable, tough Mom turned 50 today. Isn't she purrrrr-dy?

(on the left)


In addition to buying her a very hip birthday gift, I'm working on a design that will undoubtedly be finished in the year 2010. Here's the prototype:



My Mom likes to walk around her neighborhood, and during a recent conversation about the appeal of iPods, I confessed to sticking my Nano in my bra while doing the dishes.

But my Mom, the woman who struggled through child birth, only to be rewarded with my teenaged years, should certainly have a better system, right? She can't go digging in her bra in front of the poor unsuspecting neighborhood children who just want to ride bikes in their driveway. So I've been looking everywhere for an interesting iPod shuffle arm band. No luck.

Out comes the sewing machine and the graph paper. The plan is -- length of fabric + elastic + vinyl sleeve to protect iPod from sweat = prototype.

I chose this basic design so I could make Mom several arm bands in several fabrics. My Mom is a girly girl, so I envision bold pinks and purples and flowery prints. Bold flowery prints should be perfect for her -- shortly after buying her new house, she painted every room pink. Her boyfriend recently bought her a small lawn tractor, and when my brother called it a "pansy tractor" Mom threatened to paint it purple. When my brother snickered and dared her to do it, she did. Now her tractor is purple and adorned with butterfly and flower decals. On his next visit, the boyfriend said, "Oh.my.god. What will the guys at the repair shop say when I show up with this?" My Mom's response? "I don't care." I laughed my ass off and scoured Michaels and A.C. Moore for additional decals.

Clearly my Mom needs several well-designed, custom-made iPod arm bands to match her many outdoor outfits (and her tractor? oy.). The problem with the prototype is the fabric isn't strong enough to withstand the pressure of the elastic, so the seams are popping. For prototype #2, I'll iron down some fusible interfacing and cut on the bias. Wish me luck.

In additon to the iPod, which should be on her doorstep before 3pm, my brother and I launched a sneak attack.* Bro wrote all over her car this morning with soap pen. "Old Lady Driving" on the windshield. "Careful. I'm 50" on the back window. "50" on each of the door windows. We know our Mom. She's perpetually late, so she had to drive to work in her freshly soaped car. And when she got to work ... mwah.ha.ha.

We coordinated with her colleagues at work to decorate her office. Bro snuck in last night, hung black streamers in her doorway, filled her office with black balloons, and blew up a 3 foot tall birthday cake for her desk. We bought "Over the Hill" plates and napkins and ordered a cake to be delivered to her office at 12noon. Hopefully she's eating cake at this very moment and being tormented by her very feisty and practical-jokester colleagues.

Wish my Mom a Happy Birthday, will ya?

*before you jump to Mom's defense, keep this in mind: at every job I've ever had, at some point in the first 6 months of my tenure, a mysterious fax addressed to my boss will arrive. The image? A picture of me from high school. Ouch.

13 comments:

Hannah said...

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Hannah said...

OMG: my see-if-she's-really-an-illiterate-robot word was "glbtsok." Guess we all need to cast on!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday, Mom!

Rhonda the Stitchingnut said...

Mwah.ha.ha... your high school picture showing up to work ... mwah.ha.ha.ha

Your Mom sounds cool ... I think I like her. Happy Birthday, YoungSter!!

InkyW said...

OMG that's a funny post all the way around.

Happy big five-oh you crazy mom you!!

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ha - fantasic. Happy Birthday, FM's mom! That iPod arm band is GENIUS. Your mom sounds hilarious and that picture of her makes her look very intrepid. How many 50 year old moms look hot in a wet suit?

wenders said...

That. is. awesome. AND your mom and my mom should be friends.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FM's mama!

My dad used to play the 1812 overture when he dropped me off at school, lovingly timed to correspond to the cannon part.

Anonymous said...

What an awesome birthday gift!

Danielle said...

I think your mom and my mom might get along rather well. Let's keep them apart, ok??

Emily said...

Holy cow, your mom is so cool. Happy birthday MOM! Love the tractor!!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday mom! I knew she was cool. I hope she had lots of fun being harrassed at work.

Anonymous said...

Love what she did to the tractor. Hope she has a very happy birthday.

somebunnysloveDOTcom said...

Happy Birthday, FKM's Mom! Because you are an active girlie girl who can take on the boys anytime, I think you need to find out about an awesome piece of clothing on Techie Diva: http://www.techiediva.com/weblog/2006/07/power_pouch.html
=:8